Report: Workers in China and India Most Likely to Play Hooky

Worker dedication may not be the root cause of China’s and India’s booming economies.

By Josh Chin

Among all the possible explanations for why China and India have experienced explosive economic growth in recent years, worker dedication doesn’t appear to be one of them.

According to a new Harris International survey on worker absences, workers in China and India – the world’s second and 10th largest economies, respectively – are the most likely to take bogus sick days.

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The survey, conducted on behalf of Massachusetts-based workforce management firm Kronos, found Chinese workers were the most likely to play hooky, with 71% admitting they had called in sick despite not actually being sick. India came in second with 62% of workers copping to the lie.

France finished last (or first?) with 16% while the U.S. (52%) and U.K. (43%) finished in the middle.

The survey, based on responses from more than 9,000 people in eight countries, was conducted in July and did not include a sampling error.

Does this mean Chinese and India workers are lazier than their French counterparts? Not necessarily.

As Joyce Maroney, director of Kronos-sponsored think tank the Workforce Institute, points out in an interview with Reuters, France is among the most generous countries in giving workers paid time off with a mandated minimum of 30 days per year. China (10 days minimum) and India (12 days minimum), meanwhile, are among the worst.

“One could surmise that in those countries where more paid time off is given, people are less compelled to call in sick when they are not actually sick,” Ms. Maroney said in the interview.

Vacation time has been the subject of fierce debate in China, particularly since 2007, when the country abolished the long May Day “Golden Week” holiday and replaced it with three shorter holidays spread throughout the year. Among the complaints: Chinese companies were hesitant to grant paid holidays at other times of the year.

“Chinese people play hooky so they don’t die on the job,” joked a user of China’s popular Sina Weibo microblogging service writing under the name Xingruyu2001 in response to the survey results. “The worker’s compensation claims would be an inconvenience to our leaders.”

In India, meanwhile, part of the issue is also the contrast between the busy workaholic ethos of the city and the leisurely pace of traditional Indian family life.

“In the village, I could go to work whenever I wanted and take rest when needed,” says Amit Kumar, a 18-year-old worker at a New Delhi restaurant who recently arrived in the city from a village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. “Here I hardly get any leave and it’s always work.” He says he feigns sickness once or twice a month and goes to visit new places in the city or simply rests at his room. His friends at the restaurant also do so, he says.

While China had the highest percentage of respondents – 45% — saying they thought employers could solve the problem by providing more time off, only a quarter of Indian workers felt the same way.

Interestingly, China and India were among the only places were a majority of workers said employers used an automated system to keep track of absences – something Kronos elsewhere claims can increase a company’s bottom line by as much as 10%.

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